An explosion in the South Ossetian-controlled village of Kokhati killed two militiamen and injured about a dozen other people on February 28, the South Ossetian Press and Information Committee and Russian news agencies reported.

Conflicting reports have emerged. The South Ossetian Press and Information Committee quoted the breakaway region’s interior minister, Mikhail Mindzaev, as saying that a police station was the target. He said an explosive device had been concealed in a television set brought to the station by “persons of Georgian ethnicity.”

Russian news agency Itar-Tass, however, quoted local law enforcement agents as saying that the explosion had occurred at a polling station. Voting for the March 2 Russian presidential elections has already started in breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia.